Edmonton Eskimos (2-6) managed to slip past the Saskatchewan Roughriders (5-3) on Saturday in front of the home fans. During the bye week, several members of the Eskimos coaching staff were fired due to the team’s poor performance. The chances to the team are minor, but one of them surprised me a little bit, to say the least.

Dan Kepley, who coached the Eskimos linebacker’s core for the past eight years resigned from the team. Many people in Edmonton thought that Kepley would be let go sooner or later because of an ongoing dispute with the Eskimos middle linebacker’s coach, who is Maurice Lloyd.

When former GM Maciocia was fired from the team earlier this season, it was only time before Kepley was let go as well. Kepley was one of Maciocia’s good friends and I’m sure he was disappointed when his friend was let go from the team. Offensive line coach, Jeff Bleamer was also let go during the bye week and he had been with the team for just a single season.

With two members of the coaching staff off the team, Ritchie Hall needed to try and find replacements. The linebackers will welcome back a face that will definitely be remembered by Edmonton fans, as linebacker’s coach Mark Nelson will return to the team. Nelson coached with Edmonton in 1993, which is the year they won the CFL Grey Cup.

Hall also preached to the team about starting the season fresh at 0-0 and playing out the final 11 games with that mentality. It seemed to work in the first week back from the bye week, as Edmonton scrapped past the Roughriders 17-14. The game started off badly for Edmonton and they found themselves down 14-0 after the 1st quarter. Ricky Ray didn’t look good and he was taken out of the game with Zabransky replacing him.

Zabransky didn’t look that great either in his limited action on Saturday and I’m sure we’ll see Ray back next week. Edmonton can thank FG kicker PreFontaine for his 2 late FG’s and their defence for the victory. Edmonton’s defence accounted for six turnovers and really helped the offence out the entire game.